Jackal
by goodbreakfast89
Summary: Naruto was a born fighter from day one. Even before he could walk, he dealt with a twisted kind of bitterness his entire life. Isolated and beaten down, Naruto refuses to ever be treated at such a level of inferiority again. This is his vicious path. This is how he became the Jackal of Konoha.
1. Once upon a time

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto—if I did, I wouldn't be writing this—I'd be living somewhere in a consistently warm climate in a moderately higher quality lifestyle…

ooooo

Once upon a time, there was a loud idiot named Uzumaki Naruto. He was young—very young, silly, and playful. But then one day, he got the shit kicked out of him. Nah, it wasn't by villagers on a drunken unruly rampage, it was by their children on a daily basis.

The moment the civilian parents realized their children might be in danger, they pulled away their children, hoping to distance any potential influence the over-exuberant demon child might have over their precious offspring.

The children however, took this as a cue to increase their alienation. Unfortunately, no action was taken because let's face it—a school teacher telling a group of kids to play nice with the one kid that nobody's parents liked was like sticking a 'kick me' sign on his back.

ooooo

"My mom told me to stay away from that kid."

"Weird—my parents told me the same thing. Do you know why?"

"Nah, but he's kinda dirty looking."

"Yeah—does he not know how to take a shower?"

The hurtful banter continued daily and grew into bullying in early academy education to the point that it became a game to chase Naruto around, throwing rocks at him and hurting wherever and however possible, maintaining a tame front in the midst of their parents and teachers, who turned a blind eye after noting Naruto's lack of retaliation.

Naruto's cheerful demeanor had dulled after the first year. By the third year, no one had seen him smile in two years. A year after, on his ninth birthday, he had lost all hints of laughter in of voice.

ooo

The bullying had gone way too long, finally cracking Naruto's patience. It had been four years and his life at school was a personal hell. He had tried to befriend them, he had tried to ignore them, and finally he had tried to avoid them. Things had only escalated with increased violence as more experienced kids from different age groups all joined in on the daily free-for-all. They didn't want to be friends, that was fine—but they had to actively torment him everyday for the rest of his life? That wasn't fine.

He didn't know why but for some reason, he felt ready. Today was it.

Today, they would learn what they were really dealing with. They would learn why their parents told them to stay away.

"Hey Naruto!" A group of kids of different ages all under ten stood near the lot in the back of an academy school building, slowly fanning out to surround Naruto as he walked out of his classroom.

Naruto stiffened as he walked out, his eyes narrowed as he glaring at his tormentors. He gritted his teeth and tensed his muscles as he prepared to bolt. His eyes darted behind the assembly of kids to the streets leading through the village as he mentally drew out a route to lose them in.

"Get him!" A boy yelled, throwing a rock. Naruto tilted into a dodge as he launched himself forward towards the blockade. The children, caught off-guard, slowly converged on Naruto as he closed the gap in the lot.

Naruto jumped high, and crashed into a kids face with a flying sidekick as he began his retaliatory assault. Landing and quickly pivoting on his heel, Naruto sent a jarring elbow strike to the sternum of his next victim. Felling a few more kids around him with vicious kicks and punches, Naruto breathed for a moment as the adrenaline rushed, the other kids suddenly very wary of what Naruto was capable of.

He had never fought back before and no one had ever really seen him fight like this in the first place, but this time their friends were on the ground clutching their very real injuries.

Naruto roared as he bolted forward once more, this time clotheslining another kid, sending him into the ground with a concussion. He quickly ran down through the village, cutting sharp lefts and rights every few blocks, his eyes darting every way, wary of any potential surprises.

His mind secure about his lead, Naruto ducked into a dark alleyway and stopped, making sure no one had followed him. Taking a deep breath, he swiftly began running up the side of the building until he had reached the roof. Grasping the roof tile, he hoisted himself onto the rooftop.

He peered over the edge to see the group of battered kids assemble, yelling at each other about where Naruto had gone and who had lost him. The group quickly split into two groups of ten who then began their searches separately.

Naruto took another deep breath and steeled himself as one group wandered down a narrow alleyway, nearing his position. Time for round two. He ran down the side of the building as they ran through and bashed a boy in the side of the head with his foot as he completed his final running step to the ground.

A girl aimed a punch only for him to parry and smash her wrist into the wall. Another girl swung her leg wildly at Naruto in a hastily formed roundhouse only to have him duck and have her toes smash into the wall behind him. Grabbing her ankle, he held it up as he swept out her other leg and let her crash to the ground.

A boy attempted to sidekick Naruto's head, only to be driven into a takedown, as Naruto tackled him from under his leg. Smashing him to the floor, Naruto grabbed the boy's knee and rammed it against the wall, ignoring the shrieking cry of pain.

Within moments, the group of ten children was completely laid out, stunned and battered in defeat. A boy who was on his knees, about to get back to his feet was brutally kicked in the ribs, knocking the air out of him.

Naruto squatted and wiped off the blood on his hands on one of the kids shirts and stood up. Taking one last spiteful look at the pile of children at his feet, Naruto ran back up the building wall with nothing but cold ruthlessness on his face, having long lost the hope to have friends his age.

ooooo

The other group of kids were scattered along a loose path in a park that bordered nin training grounds, reason for its lack of occupancy. There were dense patches of trees throughout the area with a small stream that cut off the park from the village.

As the group approached a bridge that led to back to the village, one of the boys held up his hand.

"Do you guys hear that?"

The other kids paused for a moment to hear the 'tmp-tmp-tmp' of people running.

"The other group's probably chasing him that way!" A girl yelled pointing back into a densely treed portion of the park. The other children quickly gave chase back towards the trees.

Naruto stopped pounding the ground with his fists as he heard the return stampede of the other half of his aggressors. He quickly ran up the side of a tree without a sound and waited as they slowed their run through the park path. Fishing out a small palm-sized rock from his ammunition-laden pocket, Naruto pitched the rock at a straggler in the group, the rock smacking the kid in the neck. He quickly scaled the tree and jumped to the next one.

The group halted uncertainly and attempted to assess where Naruto might be as one of their own fell, clutching his neck in pain.

"He threw it from over there!" A boy hollered, pointing at the tree Naruto had been in, only to have a rock lobbed at his chest from a tree in the opposite direction. Two down.

"No, he's over there!" A girl screeched as the boy fell from the rock. The group hesitantly moved deeper into the park when two rocks shot through their formation, claiming two more members. Immediately switching their course towards the tree the rocks had come from, they ran deeper into the park.

With only six kids left, Naruto ran down the tree to meet them head on. The world seemed to slow for him as he skidded to a stop as to prolong his head on contact with the first boy, only to duck and slam his elbow precisely at the boy's diaphragm. Not a moment of hesitation, he swept his foot out to catch the shin of a girl on the bridge of his foot, to have her crash on her face in front of him.

Quickly standing up, Naruto made short work of the rest of the group who still believed they had the numbers advantage. This time, Naruto walked away with a grin on his face—the first in almost three years.

ooooo

The sun began to droop when Naruto finally made his way home cheerfully, fully prepared to celebrate his little victory back at his dingy apartment, with some takeout from Ichiraku's since he didn't want to risk getting jumped there and disturbing the business. In his delight over beginning his favorite meal, Naruto almost failed to recognize an intruder in his apartment.

The Hokage sat at Naruto's dining table, sipping a cup of tea with his hat on the table.

"Those were some interesting moves you pulled today. You sent nine of them to the hospital."

"It's not like they had serious injuries. And they deserved it. That was four years coming and it had to end sometime. It's not like it was gonna get easier once we all became full ninja."

Sarutobi stroked his goatee as he set his teacup down.

"Well those actions haven't come without a few repercussions. Many of the parents of the kids you attacked would like to see you banned from becoming a shinobi."

Naruto's eyes bulged in incredulity.

"However, I believe I've seen enough today to make my own decision in regards to the events. First though, who taught you to tree walk and water walk?"

Naruto snorted as he began unpacking his ramen container on the dining table.

"I learned that by myself last year. I can do a lot more than that since I learned how to use chakra."

"Like what?"

"Basic academy techniques, strength boosting, speed boosting, footprint wipes, stop sound with chakra, I can loosen dirt, compact dirt, hold air bubbles underwater and stuff like that."

Sarutobi's eyes widened in surprise. Yeah Naruto might've been showing off a little bit, but there was no doubt that Minato and Kushina's on-the-fly genius had transferred exponentially into their son.

"It shouldn't surprise you old man—I had to run away from those kids every single day. It's not like I wanted to run for an hour every single day." Naruto's eyes were pointed firmly at the foam takeout bowl of ramen that he had slowly begun feeding himself.

"Anyways, why are you here again?" Naruto asked impatiently, slowly untying the wrapping for his to-go ramen container.

"Well I have a proposition for you, one that may circumvent the disciplinary action that the parents of the children you injured might take."

A pregnant pause settled over them as the potential repercussions of today's events finally hit Naruto. Well, he got stuck on the word 'circumvent' but 'parents', discipline, and 'injured' were more than enough to make sense.

"I want you to join my personal ANBU guard. It is a five-man team that is handpicked personally by the Hokage. My ANBU guard squad leader is planning on retiring and I have found myself in need of someone to take the vacant position.

"You would be pulled from the nin academy and would be trained by the squad leader for your two remaining academy years or until you are deemed field ready, in which you will join the five man squad and be prepped in team maneuvers and daily Hokage ANBU responsibilities."

"Why me old man? Why not the Uchiha or something?" Naruto couldn't figure out why he had been deemed so special.

"You have shown incredible proficiency in nin techniques far beyond your years as well as a natural genius within battle strategy. After all, today wasn't even a planned event was it?"

Naruto shook his head. While his grades and his on-paper records were abysmal, Naruto had a monstrous amount of raw talent and willpower based on his unaccompanied self-improvements.

Naruto's dead last reputation was a sham and was like the elephant in the classroom everyday. The teachers didn't care enough to accurately grade him, let alone motivate him and he had long since lost hope for acceptance through his academic performance. No one liked him, so no one gave him the time of day—but nearly everyone knew that he was a cut above the rest.

"There were a lot more kids after school today than usual. I had to do something to end it."

"Precisely. The fact that you were able to dispatch all twenty-five of your on-par peers without civilian witnesses within a two-hour time frame speaks for itself. They were all supposedly at or beyond your skill level and you were able to take on every single one of them."

Sarutobi said this with a feeling of satisfaction, being able to let Naruto know that what he did was mostly justified. He regretted not being able to take further disciplinary action on the children since they were still civilians and had no connection to revealing the secret.

"You have till the end of the week to think this over. If at any time before then that you have decided, you can meet me at my office at 8am at any time this week."

The Hokage leaned forward out of his chair slowly, groaning when his hips popped and his back cracked as he stood up. Taking his hat from the table, he added one more thing.

"You'll want to think about this. Every Hokage except the first has been a member of this ANBU guard." Naruto's eyes widened.

in spite of of all the emotional and physical agony he had been through the past six years, he had somehow managed to hold onto his dream of becoming Hokage, of gaining the favor and respect of the entire village.

As Sarutobi walked out the door, he donned his hat and tipped it to Naruto. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the same look on that face that he had seen on Minato's face all those years ago, the look of a pure soul willing to change the world.

A small smile passed over his face as he walked out into the apartment complex hallway. A blood red cloaked and hooded ANBU wearing a falcon mask blurred into view, falling into step with the Hokage without missing a beat.

"Will he come?" An older, grainier voice growled from behind the mask. The small smile returned to Sarutobi's face.

"He'll come. He knows already anyways."

ooooo

Well… that's it… Yay?

I've had a timeline of events written for a while and I just felt like sitting down and putting this out… so four days later, here's my first attempt at a Naruto fanfiction.

Btw, I tried to pace the fighting like the fight scenes in Crows Zero [directed by Takashi Miike—CHA!]

So... here it is... don't hate too hard?


	2. Little steps

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto—if I did, I wouldn't be writing this—I'd be living somewhere in a consistently warm climate in a moderately higher quality lifestyle…

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Little Steps

ooooo

Naruto had just had his world rocked. Not even a legitimate bottom rung genin and here the Hokage was just chillin at his dinner table, offering him a Red Guard position. The pecking order from genin to Hokage was a convoluted one because of the experience levels and reasons to take the respective titles but the authority of the Red Guard was one thing that was never disputed.

Naruto, despite being the pariah of society, still managed to hear faint whispers and traded rumors of the Red Guard—the infamous Hokage entourage that constantly reminded the continent of the extent of the Will of Fire.

Their reputation and exclusivity were known across the entire continent but not as Konoha's war heroes like the White Fang or the Yellow Flash. Instead, they were at the tip of every untold horror story in Konoha—carrying the same weight as ROOT still did. They were the Hokage's personal extermination crew.

The Guard itself had a history dating back before the time of the Hidden Villages when the Senju were a prominent clan. For at least three generations before the founding of the hidden villages, each Senju clan head had a personally appointed guard detail normally made up of close friends and family.

Hashirama had Tobirama, Mito, and later Sarutobi; Tobirama had Sarutobi and Danzou; and finally Sarutobi had his own consisting of Danzou, Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Tsunade, and later Minato.

His mind aching from the magnitude of this offer, Naruto grumbled to himself and tried to roll himself up in his comforter, hoping that somehow getting lost in his bed would help clear his mind.

oooo

The alarm clock began to ring—and was promptly smashed. Unfortunately, it just kept ringing. After another two increasingly violent smashes that succeeded in quieting the little alarm that thought it could, Naruto groggily hunted his head out of his sheets, blearily looking at the clock and then to the rest of his little studio apartment.

His eyes fell to his kitchen table at the empty ramen container from the night before.

"Right… from civilian to ANBU. Old man's got to be senile by now right? Nothing wrong with taking advantage of that… Nothing wrong with taking advantage of old people," Naruto grumbled to himself as he slumped his way to his bathroom.

"Stupid life changing… high risk… awesome… ANBU… ninja… life and death… training… things…" His grumbling continued into his shower, his voice unintelligible through the water and shower curtain.

Making his way down to the Hokage tower, the entire village seemed to have doubled its attempts to ignore him despite his violent actions towards some of their children yesterday. Although it might've had something to do with the heinous growling, muttering, and twitching coming from him as he walked.

Naruto finally made his way into the tower and promptly ignored the secretary as he stomped up to the Hokage's office.

"Alright old man, you win. ANBU and all that, yay, just had to give me a headache all night…" Naruto grunted, lightly kicking the slightly ajar door open.

Sarutobi looked up from his stack of paperwork. The look that passed through his features gave away his startled feeling of déjà vu but Naruto was too bleary eyed and grumpy to care.

"Hm."

Naruto stopped as an awkward silence settled over them. The clock had barely ticked half a minute before—

"Alright, seriously? You said anytime! I'm here aren't I? Time's a'wastin old man, let's get in gear! Chop chop, get me ANBU awesome and all that!"

Sarutobi let out a snort of laughter as he took a sip from a teacup from his desk.

"Youth these days, so impatient—Horse!" A hulking figure in a red cloak and a horse ANBU mask materialized in a wisp of displaced air. The mask looked intimidating in an awkward way because the horse's teeth were revealed on the mask.

"Get Naruto fitted with something his size and then take him to Sparrow. Sparrow will take him from there."

Horse nodded and gripped Naruto's shoulder tightly, making the boy flinch, leading him out of the office.

ooooo

"So why is your ANBU name Horse?" Naruto quipped as they walked into a more shinobi populated portion of the village.

"Well there was this one time—… You'll find out when you're older," Horse replied, caught off guard. Naruto's brow twitched furiously in response. Adults.

They finally turned into an old grey building with a faded white interior that had a couple of racks of clothing in the front, fabric swatches on the sides, and a set of large craft tables in the back.

A number of ongoing clothing projects seemed to be splayed out over each of the tables and beyond that, there seemed to be an erratic creaking noise of racks being moved around behind a door that led to the storage room.

"Oi, Patch! Hokage's orders, standard ninja wear—seven sets, and the standard weather layers," Horse yelled, pounding the doorframe.

A bulky, heavily muscled old man with his hair in cornrows and an eyepatch that looked to double as a pincushion from the eye socket walked out of the storage room wheeling out a hanger rack.

"… Guh. Alright alright, let's see what kind of measurements we've got."

"Hey, hey Patch. Do you know why he's called Horse?" Naruto asked as he was led to a platform in front of three mirrors.

"Well, as the story goes—there was a group of women—."

"Another time Patch," Horse interjected, hastily waved off the question hastily. Patch snorted as he finished taking Naruto's measurements.

"Alright, I've still got a couple pairs of your size in the storage room but you'll have to come back for the other half later this week." Patch ducked in and out of the storage room beyond the craft tables.

Naruto was led out of the small store wearing his new outfit, a fitted black long-sleeved zipup turtleneck shirt with grey piping and a pair of dark blue pants folded above his sandals, with a pair of grey stripes down the sides and cargo pockets built onto each stripe.

"You're shitting me, is this really standard?" Naruto tugged at the constrictive collar.

"Yeah, all genin and chunin and above get required to have safety certified clothing unless if they have valid necessities." Horse guided him down further into a narrower shinobi street.

"You're shitting me. I've seen some of the shit kunoichi wear—there's no way that stuff is certified," Naruto scoffed. His eyes then bulged as he tapped Horse's arm furiously.

"Like that! Who the fuck certified that? The shinobi AV club? " Naruto jerked his thumb at a kumoichi passing by, wearing a skimpy gauze outfit. Horse coughed weakly, but just kept pushing Naruto forward. They began to approach the training ground border.

"We're here. Sparrow should be here in a moment," Horse said calmly, stopping in front of the entrance to the nin training grounds. Naruto glanced around, looking for whoever 'Sparrow' might be. Unfortunately, between the back of the buildings facing into the village and the tree line leading into the training grounds, there was no one else there—just the two of them.

"You know, I really didn't expect you ANBU to be this talkative. Are you all like this? I always thought you guys were just—."

"Horse. You're dismissed—you can drop Naruto's stuff off at his apartment." Sparrow's voice rang out in an obviously disguised gravelly voice as the ANBU commander swirled into existence, it's pointed beak mask giving Naruto nothing but a blank stare.

Horse merely nodded his head before shooting away in a flash of red. Sparrow was completely still and continued to give Naruto the blank stare. Naruto began to stare back evenly in challenge.

"You are here because the Hokage believes you have the combination of talent, skill, and the Will of Fire—enough so to become one of the Red Guard. I however, remain apprehensive.

"I will use this first month of training to test your spirit, strength, intelligence, and your skill. If you have enough to satisfy me—then just maybe will I train your talent."

'I bow to you, wise old man', Naruto thought sarcastically as he nodded slowly, unsure if there was even going to be training that day.

"Now, follow me." Sparrow led Naruto into the section of land made up of training grounds, only passing a few younger shinobi training.

Most training at the designated grounds occurred as a genin or a chuunin for three main reasons but primarily because by the time one became a jounin, there either wasn't a whole lot left to train or there really wasn't a whole lot of time to train. On the other hand, when they did have the time, they would normally leave on a training trip to develop their new techniques in secret.

Jounin had developed a tendency to train on the fly while they were on the road during extended missions—mainly because they were experienced enough to handle any problems experimenting might cause and because once they got the hang of their new technique, it could immediately be field tested. After all—they had the Will of Fire to represent and what better way to forge it than through fire of combat itself? And yes, many jounin did have death wishes.

The two finally arrived in a large clearing surrounded by thick trunked trees, creating a sort of fence of trees. Occasional stumps were strewn around the clearing, some looking like they had been mauled and others looking like they had been sliced clean through.

Once in the center of the clearing, Sparrow stopped, causing Naruto to look back up at the unidentifiable masked ANBU. With a gloved hand that had only the bottoms of the fingertips open, Sparrow drew out a small blank card that was gestured to Naruto.

"Take it and channel chakra into it."

Naruto obliged, still slightly underwhelmed by the lack of 'extreme ANBU training' that he had imagined occurring. The paper split in quarters. Again, underwhelming. Those pieces of paper then split into halves. Surprising, but still underwhelming. Naruto turned back to Sparrow.

"Um… Sorry I broke your paper?" Sparrow gave away no reaction, not even a move.

"It seems that you have a very highly developed wind affinity," Sparrow spoke each word heavily, betraying the surprise the ANBU felt.

"Affinity?"

"The natural alignment of your chakra—every chakra sensitive human being has one. Most shinobi capitalize on it for the purpose of advancing their ninjutsu abilities—by using their primary natural chakra sensitivity as a jumping off point in their personal development of more combat oriented elemental ninjutsu."

Naruto gave Sparrow a blank look.

"Natural chakra affinity. Each shinobi has an element. Maybe two. Makes certain elemental jutsu easier to learn and customize. Get it?" It appeared that Naruto's inability to compute Sparrow's affinity explanation had forced a brief note of discontent and impatience.

Naruto nodded slowly, still wondering if he was going to actually do something awesome today.

"So… what now? Since I'm a wind affinity and all."

Sparrow paused for a moment. A breeze blew through the trees, rustling a few leaves around them. Jerkily turning his head in the direction of the wind, Sparrow walked back towards the ring of trees. Walking to five specific trees, Sparrow jammed a kunai into the trunk of each tree.

"This is your first test. You have two weeks to cut down these trees with these kunai. You are specifically to use these kunai for the duration of this assignment."

Naruto's eyes bulged. He breathed in slowly, the shock nearly getting the better of him. Kunai to cut down a tree.

"I don't know if you realize this Sparrow, but these things are three feet thick, at least."

"Yes."

"Oh. Alright, just thought you should know." The surprise on Naruto's face betrayed his misgivings about taking down a tree that thick, let alone five.

Somewhere in his thought process was a seed of determination that slowly wiped the surprise off Naruto's face and replaced it with a steely gaze upon his first challenge to become worthy of the ANBU. Some hardcore lumber chopping. Right on.

"Since you have no more questions, if you somehow finish before the end of next week, you will report back to the Hokage's office for further details. You begin now." With that, Sparrow was gone in a flash of red.

Naruto placed his foot on the trunk of the tree and grasped the outward jutting kunai handle. Pulling as hard as he could, Naruto walked his foot up the tree further in a greater effort to pull the kunai out. With a mighty tug, Naruto yanked it out and tumbled backwards, rolling over his shoulders.

"Fuck," Naruto grumbled. Walking up to the tree, he took a deep breath and made his first cut on the tree. Some bark flew off the tree from Naruto's attempt at an aggressive stripping session. Growling, Naruto began to hack and slash, cut harder and faster with each blow.

ooooo

The spring sunset of the third day found Naruto drenched in sweat and a single tree that was not yet a quarter way cut through.

'Fuck. If I go at this rate, this tree by itself is gonna take the entire week,' Naruto calculated, glaring at the tree. He began shifting his posture and his weight distribution differently as he began to experiment and find which position would make the most of each slash he took.

By nightfall, Naruto had improved his stroke and somehow managed to cut through what felt like a eighth of the tree. His hands were on fire from switching back and forth and quickly developing blisters on each hand—his back and inner stomach were raging over having been kept taut for almost the entire day—and even tighter in the last hours of the day.

Panting, Naruto collapsed on the training ground floor, not bothering to walk back to his apartment.

ooooo

The afternoon of the fifth day made way for a booming crash of success as Naruto finally felled a tree. He wasn't satisfied though. There were four more to go and only nine days to finish. And on top of that, the traditional 'spring heat wave of Konoha' had just blasted the village.

Desperation had begun to haunt Naruto. He was already missing two weeks at the academy for this shit. What if it didn't fly? What if Naruto was let go, back to the cackling little vultures that were his classmates? What if their parents succeeded in barring him from becoming a shinobi? This desperation quickly turned in a hellish resolve as Naruto continued to fight for his future.

Girls had stripped down to tank tops and skirts and boys had tank tops and shorts and some had just foregone shirts completely. Naruto had adopted the same approach, his shirt zipped open, leaving his chest bare and his messy crop of hair matted with sweat. He stopped back in the village for a days worth of ramen takeout and left Teuchi and Ayami with questioning gazes as they took note of his hands crusted with blood.

Naruto slurped his ramen from his newly formed log perch while staring at his second tree, which was only barely past the bark. A small prick of pain in his hand jerked Naruto out of his ramen-state nirvana. He mindlessly plucked the splinter on his hand that must have come from the cheap wooden chopsticks that come with all takeout.

'Splinter'. The word rang in Naruto's unsteady mind as he was already quite dulled from the heat wave.

'I wish I could turn these fucking trees into chopsticks—I'd take every pair of chopsticks and snap them in half just to show these stupid trees who's boss', Naruto thought viciously, stuffing more ramen into his mouth.

Finishing his late breakfast, Naruto continued his assault on his second victim. Merely an hour later found Naruto losing his patience as this particular tree seemed twice as dense as the previous one.

A hot, frustrated anger began to surge through Naruto as his mind began to form an unintentional mantra.

'Nine. Days. Left. Nine. Days. Left. Nine. DAYS. LEFT. NINE. DAYS. LEFT. NINE. DAYS. LEFT!' Naruto's anger manifested into a sheen of chakra around his hand and kunai by extension as he took a longer backswing, unconsciously letting more chakra coalesce into a cloud around his hand. With a guttural roar, Naruto slashed at the tree once more.

"SCRAAAAGGCKK!"

Naruto shielded his face with his free hand immediately after the kunai made contact with the tree. Bark and splinters were sprayed everywhere as Naruto's chakra charge violently combusted upon making contact with the tree. A shallow crater had been forced into the tree, tripling the size of Naruto's original efforts.

Nearly hyperventilating, he tried to understand what he had just done. Longer backswing? No. Wider stance? No. Yelling? Fuck no. Anger? No—

'Splinter!' Naruto realized rapidly. Looking back down at his kunai wielding hand, Naruto began to calmly concentrate chakra back around the kunai. However, instead of an almost fist shaped cloud, Naruto attempted to give this new chakra form a needlepoint.

He felt his chakra gather as close together as possible before he reared back and rushed at the tree to give it another swipe. This time, Naruto's chakra whipped from the kunai around the tree, creating a crushing, slapping effect that merely whipped around and stripped the bark off the side of the tree in a jagged line.

A satisfied grimace swept over Naruto's face as he continued to experiment with the potential key to his success. After all, Sparrow didn't say 'just kunai'.

ooooo

The next evening was a frightening sight. Naruto, in his new experimentation, had blown tree number two apart. Chunks of lumber the size of Naruto lay strewn around the area. Tree number three had a more refined touch to it as large gouges littered the trunk, which became thinner and deeper as they narrowed down to a single valley along the side of the trunk.

Slurping up yet another takeout cup of ramen, Naruto held it between his propped up knees while holding his chopsticks with his right hand and his kunai with his left. Rather than attempting to assault the tree with more savagery, it appeared that Naruto had calmed down and was busy concentrating on his kunai while attempting to blindly feed himself ramen.

A thin blue sheen of chakra was slowly enveloping the kunai, elongating and become less and less perceptible until it was simply invisible. Putting the ramen container aside, Naruto stood up slowly and tiptoed to the tree as if balancing something on his kunai and slowly pointed the tip at the tree. The tip timidly began to sink in without any force from Naruto, who trembled as he breathed, feeling how easily the kunai was settling itself into the tree.

Steeling himself for the unexpected, Naruto took a deep breath and gave the kunai a swipe through the tree in as if trying to push the tree over. A hiss was heard as light plumes of sawdust puffed out of the sides of the tree trunk. Not a second later, the tree toppled over, the rest of its trunk cleanly sliced through by Naruto's newfound wind enhancement.

Of course, then the remaining chakra channeled into the kunai violently exploded in an expanding swirling ball of wind that sent Naruto tumbling away from his trees and into the side of a stump. Don't lose concentration.

ooooo

The eigth afternoon had Naruto taking even more time to refine his cutting edge. Rather than finishing the assignment and felling the fourth and fifth trees, he attempted to refine his stroke by cutting the first three trees into slices, like salami. The large disks of tree that he hoped to create were far and few between as his attempts constantly ended in a number of explosive results.

But by the end of the day, Naruto had found himself victory as he was able to quickly summon up wind chakra to chop out not quite precise, but quick and neat near five inch slices.

ooooo

On the afternoon of the ninth day, he found himself back in front of the Hokage tower. He had done it. Five trees, five kunai, and now from what Naruto could estimate, either a shitload of firewood or a destined fire hazard. And from what Sparrow could tell while watching Naruto, he had managed to master intermediate wind manipulation in a little over a week.

Yes, it appeared Naruto would be destined for great things.

ooooo

So while I'm not keen on leaving this chapter like this, I'm reconsidering my timeline and having Naruto train a little longer.

I know some people might argue that a week without shadow clones to learn wind manipulation is also beyond far-fetched but I decided to make a judgment call based on his self-education over chakra control at such a young age, as well as the idea that he simply learns faster under pressure.

Well… see you in a bit


	3. Walk it out

Chapter 3-

ooooo

ooooo

Naruto stood in a wavering taijutsu stance panting, his face dripping with sweat looking like the last peach at the grocery stand. Bruises, scuffs, and smudges littered his entire frame with only minor damage to his new shinobi threads. A swollen cut lip bled freely and a large split that ran over his cheekbone had already crusted over. Three copies of Sparrow stood around him, all perfectly still in their own taijutsu stances.

In a flash of red, a Sparrow copy struck—open palm to the side of Naruto's head. Naruto leaned back while reaching out with his hands—miss. Sparrow copy number two forced Naruto to kneel with a low kick to the back of the right knee.

Undeterred, Naruto shifted his weight forward and bounced onto his palms and maneuvered himself forward into the turtle position. Lashing out with his left foot into a grounded sidekick, he caught the front of the knee of the open palm clone and felt it give as the clone itself crumbled into rock.

Unfortunately, Naruto was completely unprepared for the other clones as the second one gave him a low roundhouse to the shoulder while the third clone sent its own low roundhouse at his extended hip. The two kicks forced Naruto into the air and flipped him, sending his face into the dirt.

The resulting dual kick nearly took Naruto apart as he felt his rotator cuff brutally crunch under the impact. Fortunately, his hip was a bit tougher than that but shit that hurt.

Naruto's body jerked into a grapple lock as he read a kick coming straight at his rib cage. He caught the offending ankle with his uninjured arm and kicked up into a knee bar as the Sparrow clone tried to withdraw. Too late. Naruto snapped the ankle first and with a full body jerk, the knee followed. The clone crumbled just as quickly as the last.

Rolling out of the remnants of the clone, Naruto crouched into a pitiful taijutsu stance, his left arm clutched to his body as best as possible. The last Sparrow clone walked menacingly to him, not even bothering with a stance. Red flash—Sparrow clone had just tried to lock his ankle into a frontstep footsweep.

Naruto stumbled back, already reeling from the pain, the shock, barely getting by on his instantaneous bodily reaction to dodge the strike.

'So close. I have one clone left and here I am about to pass out like a little bitch'.

A pit of despair seemed to crumble open within Naruto. Sparrow was just too fast, too strong, and the clones were made of fucking rock. His breath catching into heaves, Naruto swallowed, narrowing his eyes to rid himself of oncoming tears, doing all he could not to just collapse to the floor in defeat right there.

One month. One fucking month. At least the tree cutting was worth it. This was just torture at the meanest level. Ten doton bunshin a day until he could take all ten out within the day. Straight taijutsu. Two weeks of getting nutted on like a prison bitch for as long as there was daylight, just to end all because he didn't have the sack to land one last clean hit.

'No! I can't stop now! I didn't give up the first day and I damn sure ain't giving up this one. One dumb fucking clone with a dumb fucking bird mask is not going to stop me! I. Will. Not. Give. Up.'

He bared his bloodstained teeth in a silent growl, his face contorted into a scowl, and he tightened up his stance.

"You have three hours left." Sparrow spoke in that same weird gravelly textured voice.

"Fuck you, cunt nugget."

Another red flash signaled a sidekick to the sternum that just rocked him like a thunderclap. He was sent tumbling across the clearing, landing on his face in a puff of dust. He quickly rolled to the side as the heel of an axe kick cracked the ground into chunks as it attempted to go through his head.

With the last dregs of energy and an indomitable willpower, Naruto steeled himself and rolled back to the front of Sparrow and launched his last offense. Back kick, turn into sidekick, turn and head duck into dual palm thrust. Fuck that hurts, retract left palm.

Sparrow took the pause in offense to send a final decisive punch at Naruto's chest when the boy leapt up and pistoned both feet through Sparrow's sternum, punching a wide hole through the rock clone.

"Fwump." Naruto landed on the pile of dirt and rock, his face contorted into a visage of silent unimaginable pain from his landing position.

The real Sparrow shunshined into existence and walked up to Naruto, clapping slowly.

"Congratulations. You've passed my last test." Naruto lay limp, completely unresponsive. Sparrow paused, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment.

It never came. Naruto had passed out the moment after he hit the floor, the pain shutting him down.

"… Back in my day, kids used to stay conscious for the cool rewarding moments," Sparrow grumbled, hoisting Naruto up in a one armed fireman's carry. A quick shunshin sent them both to the hospital.

ooooo

A day later, and Naruto was already awake and bored and restless in his hospital room. The morning sun had barely touched his window and he was already fidgeting in the funky smelling hospital sheets. He was also semi-certain that the lame pastel walls were talking about him. Either that, or his ears were still ringing from getting kicked in the head one too many times.

Thinking back to the past month and beyond, he began to question himself. Why did he try so hard? What were his goals now? His mind drifted towards his early juvenile declarations of wanting to become Hokage. Acknowledgement. Respect. The most respected. The most acknowledged.

He remembered walking down the street with the Hokage and packs of kids stopping dead in their tracks, and turning tail as quickly as they came—their parents bowing their heads in reverence, even the ANBU reporting in arriving in smoke clouds already kneeling.

It wasn't subservience that he wanted—there was no point to that, aside from a whole lot of resentment and pent-up anger from forced subjugation. No, it was the acceptance, the gratitude, the acknowledgement of the village that for once, he was recognized for being in the right—for being at the head of the pack, for coming up from nothing and making something of himself.

He snapped out of his reverie when the cheap particleboard door opened as Sparrow walked in with the same lack of emotive give-away.

"You're cleared to leave. You've also passed my final test. I have one question though."

Naruto stared expectantly.

"Are you sure you're ready? The history of this ANBU division—you earn the red on your cloak from the blood you take. Are you confident that you can shoulder this?"

The boy glanced down at his hands. Normal scars never lasted on his skin, always repairing almost seamlessly. The wind chakra had left glazed burn patches from shredding and cauterized nicks and streaks further up along his wrists.

'I've started and I can't stop now'.

Blue eyes met the sparrow mask with a small silent nod.

Sparrow stood next to Naruto's bed and withdrew a clear plastic wrapped parcel of red fabric, which he placed on the bed, and a mask from beneath the heavy red cloak.

"This is your ANBU mask. Once you put this on, you can never turn back."

Naruto studied the mask in Sparrow's hand. A snout and ears were sculpted out of it much like Sparrow's beak. The painted bottom jaw and highlights of the mask were the same dark red of the cloak and the eyes were hauntingly empty circles, untouched by the paint.

"Back in the day, they used to be wood. Now they're a fiberglass, urethane, and wood composite."

A jackal. Not a wolf—smaller, with a narrower snout. They were field scavengers, known to trail bigger carnivores and take from their kills. It made sense though, given how he was being inducted into the ANBU. Not yet a legal ninja, and somehow skipping over an entire rank system to play with the big dogs, the predators of Konoha.

Taking the mask by the bottom edge, Naruto felt the odd material that it was made of. It didn't quite amount to porcelain, but it wasn't quite a plastic either.

"Bring it on."

ooooo

Sparrow let Naruto stop by back at his apartment to change into a fresh set of his shinobi threads and also to get his ANBU mask and cloak fitted appropriately.

As Naruto attended to his basic hygiene [ninja dental plans suck since their teeth get knocked out so much] and donned his outfit, he noticed in the mirror that his face had barely scarred. The split over his cheekbone that had almost flapped open from a clean contact kick was now barely a thin silver line on his cheek—unnoticeable unless you looked for it carefully.

He tugged on the thick red cloak material and took the time to feel its weight and maneuverability, taking a few test flaps and twists with his arms and body. He couldn't tell from sight directly, but the fabric was somewhat coarse—like it was made of sparse wool, light and airy as if to allow breathability.

The mask though, that was an odd creation. There was a ring of heat sensitive foam that molded to the rim of the face, which was nice. The straps actually hid miniature breathing apparatus tubes that filtered out the air from the sides of the head beneath the straps and piped into the mask from the edges. The unfortunate thing about that was the filtration units were small and looked like they needed to be replaced often.

Finally assembled in his new ANBU garb, Sparrow quickly led Naruto in a dash through the rooftops back to the Hokage tower where they flitted through the window to report to Sarutobi in his office.

Unfortunately, having never done anything like that at that speed, Naruto clipped the edge of the window and had to pull himself in. Both Sparrow and the old Hokage just paused and stared as Naruto heaved himself into the office window, grumbling about having to keep up with stupid bird ANBU.

Sparrow turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"Sarutobi-sama, despite his… inability to report efficiently, he is well-prepared and has passed my training tests. Based on his basic initiation training performance, I can comfortably say that he is field ready.

"In addition to my current evaluation of his performance level, I believe the disclosure date should be pushed forward in the interest of a less… severe outcome."

Sarutobi looked up from his desk, his face a placid calm that gave away nothing. Naruto stared blankly, his mask turning slowly between the old man and the birdman.

"Good. Your concern has been noted but as I have said before, it has been Jiraiya's place to make good on his end of the disclosure agreement. Give him his first assignment and report back to me upon completion."

Sparrow nodded and led Naruto away to the mission assignment office.

It was a rather quick process at the assignment desk where Sparrow signaled a chuunin with four fingers and a raking gesture on the desk followed by a tap before pointing at Naruto.

The chuunin stared blankly for a moment before grinning widely and shuffling through a set of scrolls and handing one to Naruto.

"Ha, welcome to the force Jackal-san," the chuunin smirked as Naruto took the scroll, meeting Naruto's masked face that hid his confused look. Behind Naruto and out of his range of vision, Sparrow shook slightly as if shivering for a moment.

Not bothering to examine his scroll, Naruto moved to exit the building, leading a jerkily moving Sparrow who was doing everything possible to not burst out laughing.

"Are you serious?" Naruto's brow twitched in disbelief as he stared down at his mission scroll. Naruto had opened his first mission scroll outside of the tower and was currently frozen in shock, his jaw almost unhinged.

"Seriously? I go through a month of getting shat on for this?"

Sparrow kept a motionless stare trained on Naruto.

"Hey! Come on, don't give me that stupid stare—it's getting old!" A longer pause. The stare still held. Naruto stared right back, his mask nodding as he stuck his chin out in mockery of Sparrow's gaze.

Sparrow snorted. Naruto jumped. Since when did ANBU snort? Sparrow appeared to take a deep shuddering breath before replying in a shaky voice.

"Well what are you waiting for? Get to work—this mission's supposed to be finished before the end of the day."

Naruto gave Sparrow one last glare before stomping away to his mission site, grunting and muttering about dumbass birds and their stupid tasks. As soon he was out of sight, Sparrow burst out laughing, doubling over and clutching his chest in a disturbing belly laugh that didn't exactly match the voice modifier.

The other ninja in the vicinity all jumped at the sight of an ANBU breaking composure. While it wasn't protocol for ANBU to stay composed at all times, it was an unspoken rule to provide a uniform image of stoic vigilance and intimidation. Fortunately, this unspoken rule could afford to be broken occasionally.

ooooo

Towards the late afternoon, Naruto could be found trudging back from a densely treed park dragging a bundled yowling cocoon of a cat with its head poking out of its bandage ties. The yowling was accentuated by the rockiness of the road as a shrill M-R-O-O-O-W-W-W-W-R-RRR could be heard throughout the village.

Naruto jerked the rope attached to the cocooned cat, causing a break in its yowl. As he inhaled a sigh of relief, the cat cut him off and continued its yowling.

His mask though extremely durable and resilient, looked like someone had tried to wipe it down with extremely low grit sandpaper, while his cloak looked like something had tried to bore a couple holes through it with an eggbeater and a fork. The hood of his cloak was also still smoking from charring around the edges.

Retracing his stomps from earlier in the day, he made his way back to the Hokage tower and stomped up the staircase, getting the attention of every ninja in the vicinity.

"Stomp. Fwump. MROW! Stomp. Fwump. MEOWWRR! Stomp. Fwump. MROW! Stomp. Fwump. MREWR!" could be heard with every stair step Naruto took. The cat would yowl at each step it bumped into.

Finally making his way into the mission assignment office, he dragged his captive up past a line of gennin teams that made space for the diminutive red clad ANBU and dumped the writhing cocoon of a cat on the desk.

"Mission complete. Give me my money." The entire mission office erupted in laughter upon Naruto's initial words. A chuunin at the desk handed Naruto his paycheck all while laughing with the rest of the office. Naruto stomped back out of the office amidst the roar of laughter from every ninja in the building.

Making his way up to the Hokage's office, he rudely kicked the door open to see both Sparrow and the Hokage look up from a document that was being examined. Before he could hand over his written mission report, Sparrow and the Hokage also burst out laughing, Sparrow having to clutch the table to stay upright.

"You guys suck." Naruto slapped his mission report onto the desk and walked to the open window.

As he leapt out onto the rooftops, Sarutobi wiped a tear from his eye while trying to calm himself as Sparrow struggled to catch his own breath.

"Whewww—alright, have him introduced to the others tomorrow and get him acquainted with the lay of the land—do a six month outpost tour to the borders."

"And his team leader education?"

"After the tour, set him up with an ANBU squad to get him acquainted with team missions and once you think he's ready, get him set up to with a gennin team or two later for some mission leads."

"Yes sir. However, on a side note, with your permission could I teach him a particular jutsu that I feel would benefit his team experience and education immensely?"

"And what jutsu would that be?"

"I feel that the Kage Bunshin would facilitate a greater mental awareness by conscious tactical coordination as well as doubling or tripling his experience per mission based on his base amount of chakra."

Sarutobi paused pensively, slowly clasping his hands beneath his chin.

"Make it so. Have him use it enough times that it becomes habit. The strain on his chakra reserve should adjust accordingly."

"Yes sir."

ooooo

So there's Naruto's official ANBU acceptance and the end of his intro training. I have nothing against cats, except the ones that fight each other outside my window every other night. Those ones need to go home.

Please review?

Thanks for reading!


	4. Call it what you want

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto because if I did, I'm pretty sure I'd have a slightly higher quality of life right now.

ooooo

Genma Shiranui had to admit—he was excited for today. He had woken up with more cheer than he had in a while and sang while he showered. It was a loosely kept secret that Naruto was the 4th Hokage's son but it had been forbidden to reveal to the boy of his actual lineage. At least, not until he was prepped to handle it. But nonetheless, he was excited to see how his old boss's progeny would interact with the rest of the Red Guard.

Naruto was finally going to be introduced to the rest of the Guard after his entire month of fierce training. Genma shrugged on his outfit and pulled on his Guard cloak and snapped on his mask. With a quick sequence of seals, he shunshined out of his apartment onto his rooftop. Time to see how much the boy had grown.

ooooo

"Where are we!?" Naruto wailed as he sat blindfolded with his wrists tied behind his back. Sparrow had led him into a loosely wooded clearing opposite the bottom of a cliff with what looked like a giant seal array behind it. Naruto huffed, straining his head, trying to shrug off the blindfold.

The blindfold was untied, revealing Sparrow and a line of four other red cloaked and masked ANBU, all staring at him with their blank, round-eyed expressions. Naruto spotted Horse amongst the series of grotesquely smiling masks, now not looking so hulking in comparison. The thought never occurred to Naruto that he was just short.

Sparrow assumed a spot on the right hand side of the line of them behind five roughly hewn podiums with large rock blocks standing in front of each of them.

A short nod from Sparrow and they all slowly unmasked and unhooded themselves.

"You're a chick!?" Naruto yelped, the shock nearly bowling him onto his side as he boggled at the sight of Sparrow unmasked. A couple exaggerated coughs from the other unmasked ANBU were heard.

"Surprising, eh?" The woman said as she winked and violently elbowed the man clearing his throat next to her.

"Since you're the newest inductee into the Red Guard, this is the unofficial traditional unmasking spot for new inductees, even though most chuunin and jounin know who we are…

"But that aside, this is where we make our formal introductions and welcome you into the dynasty. To start off, my name is Rin and we have selected you to take my place as I enter blissful retirement."

Naruto had already freed himself of his bindings but was still on the floor with a heavy eyebrow twitch. Wow.

"How the fuck are you a chick? Normal girls don't have hands that big," Naruto barely mumbled out, his brow still cocked in astonishment.

A large twig bounced off his head, bringing him out of his shock and back to focus on a terrifying visage of Rin snapping apart a giant tree branch into small chunks with her bare hands. Face of a model with the temper of a gorilla.

"ANYWAYS," Rin grunted, ignoring the stifled laughter of the men around her,

"From the left we have Raido Namiashi with the Skunk mask, Genma Shiranui whom you've already met with the Horse mask, Aoba Yamashiro with the Cat mask, and Jiraiya the Toad Sannin with the Raccoon mask.

"We all previously served under the Yondaime and since the Sannin were dissolved long before his death, it was impossible to get the Sandaime's original Red Guard back, so here we are.

Naruto sat gaping as he took in the row of ninja that made up the Red Guard. Rag tag crew was one thing—from their faces alone they just looked like a cross between a bowling team, a high school, and a nightclub. Raido, Genma, and Aoba looked like they should be outside of a bar or a club creeping on girls, Jiraiya looked like Rin's fake flamboyant pimp, and Rin herself looked like the one cheerleader that always gets hit on by creepy older men.

"Now, your first real initiation mission begins."

Naruto perked up, not letting himself get too excited.

'There had better not be a fucking cat in this mission', Naruto thought tetchily, his fingers tensing slightly.

"You are to make a bust of each of our faces out of these granite blocks. You've got twenty minutes."

Naruto's facial expression imitated the blocks.

"… Run that by me again?" This time, none of them were smirking. They all stared down at him with equal looks of contesting intensity, as if expecting him to put his life on the line for the blocks.

"Without touching them," Rin quipped, smiling cheerfully. Naruto let out a huff. Great, ninja art project… He stood up and paced between the blocks and each of their faces before coming to a solution.

In a show of surprising skill, Naruto held his hands up as they began to glow a dim blue sheen of wind chakra. He attempted to touch the rock and found that it crumbled off slightly with a bit of force behind the touch.

He glanced back at the line of older shinobi and found a set of receptive- interested looks, all laying their expectancies on him. Clenching his jaw, he jabbed a deep gouge into the block, effectively ruining what was to be Jiraiya's face.

ooooo

Twenty minutes later…

"You really suck at sculpture…" Rin murmured, bobbing her head out in examination of her sculpture as Naruto made his finishing touches on her face. The line of ANBU burst out laughing as they broke the line and gathered around a huffing Naruto.

The sculptures had all turned out abstract to the point of landscaping material as some of their heads had just been turned into roughly hewn stones that could pass as natural phenomenon.

"What—huff—the fuck—huff—was the purpose of this thing!?" Naruto wheezed, wringing out his hands as he wobbled slightly. His fingertips were bright red from all of the minor shrapnel and constantly bashing his fingers against the stone.

"You realize you just used a constant flow of wind chakra for twenty minutes straight, right?" Genma said, his toothpick needle bobbing as he spoke.

Naruto's jaw paused itself in mid-word, his voice dying before it began.

It had only been a little longer than a month and he had grown in leaps and bounds in ways that he had only previously known from textbooks and old war stories of warriors of generations past, manipulating the elements to their very will—he had gained that control and he didn't even realize it until now. Probably because he was busy getting his face smashed in for two weeks. There was a rumor that if you got hit in the head too many times, you'd lose your memory.

Jiraiya clapped him on the back, and steadied his shoulder as he wobbled slightly from the minor exhaustion he was feeling.

"Welcome to the club kid. Before we all forget though, we've got one last little initiation thing for you to do," Jiraiya said with a solemn look of authority on his face.

"Fuck this—I ain't doin no more stupid—," but Naruto was cut off as Jiraiya whipped out a bottle and stuffed the top into his mouth. Naruto's eyes bulged and watered as he struggled with the foreign liquid pouring out of the bottle.

"Drink. Each and every member of the Red Guard has gone through the initiation of testing their alcohol tolerance level. It's partially a fun thing but it does also double as a training exercise—training your resistance to alcohol and… stuff."

Naruto broke away from the bottle gasping and coughing as he tried to right himself. Pounding his fist against his chest, he flopped down to a sitting position still wheezing.

"ULLLGHHH! You guys are crazy! What's wrong with you guys!? I'm underage! What kind of ANBU is this!? Elite fighting force!? Since when do elite fighting forces get kids drunk!?" He ranted, his eyes teary from the alcohol burn. They all looked anywhere but him as they whistled slowly pulling bottles from behind their backs.

"Well, firstly—this is an unofficial initiation for most jounin and secondly, you became an adult the moment you made your last sculpture stroke," Rin said, causing Naruto to whip his head and glare at his shoddy sculptures.

"You're ANBU now and more than that, you're Red Guard now. Man up and take your shots," Rin leered, poking Naruto in the head with another bottle that she held. Naruto glared at her and flicked his glare at everyone else, who all slowly nudged bottles at his face.

"You guys are messed up," he grumbled before taking a bottle.

With a deep breath, he took a swig that led to a sputter and a cough. The rest of them cheered for their new teammate before taking their own swigs.

ooooo

The next day, Naruto awoke with his head pounding, his shoulder being jostled awake.

"Glad to see you're alive kid," Raido said, handing the boy a cup of coffee. As Raido sat down on a couch opposite of him, Naruto began to regain his bearings and sat up slowly before attempting to turtle into his shirt.

The living room they were in was reasonably well lit from the sunlight—and it was that exact thing that Naruto was currently trying to escape. Raido chuckled as Naruto tucked his chin as far as it would go inside his shirt collar, only to have his heavily lidded eyes peeking out.

"… Where am I?" he croaked in a voice that was closer to Rin's vocal scrambler in her mask. Raido burst out laughing, hearing the dramatic change in his voice.

"You're at my apartment, I'm roommates with Genma and Aoba—but damn kid, you got some balls. You set a new record for first timers."

Naruto groaned in response as he poked his lips out in an attempt to sip the hot beverage. Noticing a throbbing pain on his left shoulder, he lifted his sleeve up to find a freshly inked ANBU tattoo, just barely scabbing over.

"… What the fuck happened?" he creaked, giving up on getting the coffee to funnel into his mouth.

"Well, we started in the forest and moved to the Lazy Horse—ANBU bar, you'll get to know the place later—and we met some of people our age there and had a bit of a drunk-off with them—you got along with them pretty well for a first timer."

"Hahahaha, the hero rises! You got in a drinking contest with Anko and won, good for you—although I'm pretty sure she's gonna axe murder you for taking her coat like that," Genma said as he unsteadily shuffled into the living room with his own steaming coffee cup, his hair a mussed birds nest under his bandana.

"Kid, you've got some blessed fucking gonads—remind me to always bet on you for… anything!" he continued as he plopped down next to Naruto on the couch and took a deep swig of his own coffee.

"... Who's Anko?" Naruto whispered, both his voice and face muddled in confusion.

"Um… ahem… The naked one—," Raido said with a straight face before he and Genma burst out laughing.

ooooo

Naruto was allowed the next couple of days off to rest and prepare before joining Jiraiya and Rin on a tour of the Fire Country outposts. During this time, he made sober contact with the number of nins he had been introduced to while he was blacked out.

For example, after he had recovered at the Red trio's apartment and walked through the village towards the Hokage tower, he had been given hi fives by a pair of chuunin, leaving him bewildered with his hand still in the air.

When he entered the tower, he was given a mild smattering of applause from the jounin who had witnessed the events of the night before. His groggy bewilderment increased as he slowly lugged himself up the stairs to the Hokage office.

Finally, he walked in to meet Sarutobi's amused gaze, Jiraiya's perverted leer, and Rin's glass melting glare of disapproval.

"Um. So I'm reporting but… I don't remember what happened and…" Naruto began whispering, causing both Sarutobi and Jiraiya's faces to widen into full grins while Rin's eyes barely softened.

"I think I was drugged?" A pause.

A simultaneous snort from the three of them startled Naruto.

The three burst out in laughter in response. Naruto gave them a withering look—for some reason this kept on happening… When was he gonna get the badass missions already?

After giving a brief statement on his recovery, he was briefed for his trip through the outposts.

ooooo

The next two weeks were a blur as Naruto was introduced and guided along the Fire Country border in his Red Guard garb. The ninja that took in his appearance either tried to size him up or took brief glances at him with astonishment given his small figure.

Naruto himself was awed by his introduction to nearly a third of Konoha's entire military force. If he had thought there was diversity in the village, the village had nothing on the range of nin spread throughout the country itself.

From the sedate guardians of assorted temples to the vicious hunter nin outfits to the jaded and weary one or two year contracted outpost nins, they were all of an entirely different cut from Konoha.

In the peace time, some had relaxed and settled—treating their tours of duty like one long vacation, while others too jaded from missions beyond their capabilities had kept an intense paranoia about them. This was all too different from the straight hustle and military strictness found in Konoha.

As Naruto continued his travels with Jiraiya and Rin, he began to see why Jiraiya looked and acted the way he did. A big flamboyant figure that could handle being the 'life of the party'—because more and more, that's what this chain of outposts seemed to be—just one unending meet-and-greet where information was extracted, money was exchanged, and relationships were sustained.

Now, it was along this border tour that Naruto had the off chance of coming in contact with various important figures along his journey. He had met the Yondaime Kazekage briefly before departing from the desert border as the Kazekage had just wrapped up his own tour of the Suna outposts. The lingering look that he gave Naruto was one of the first of many that Naruto was soon to receive.

In Grass country, he had seen Jiraiya's exaggerated swoon over Tsunade's immense upper body proportions and then Jiraiya's exaggerated pain over Tsunade's immense upper body strength. However, that was nothing compared to what came next.

ooooo

In the demilitarized zone between Fire and Stone, Naruto and his small crew briefly crossed paths with a procession of the Stone Daimyo and his jounin guard detail. It was the longest ten minutes of his life as he felt an overbearing presence bear down on the entire four points crossing that they had passed each other at.

Of the seven Iwa jounin traveling with the procession, the two eldest who looked to be in their mid-thirties had their brows furrowed in disgust particularly at Naruto. The five younger jounin who looked to be between their late teens and early twenties had silent snarls curled across their faces with their fists shuddering as they gripped their kunai tightly.

Within the four feet of space between the Konoha and Iwa groups, Jiraiya and Rin's steps seemed to tighten up as they made eye contact with the Iwa nin as if daring them to make a move. Naruto, though tense, was bewildered by the situation until he caught the eye flickers of one of the jounin. His hair.

After the Iwa procession had gone far enough down the road, Naruto perked up to break the silence.

"I don't think they like blondes very much," he said bluntly as they continued down the path.

"You got that right kid. Our Yondaime's reputation still haunts their military force and the fact that he was blonde kind of puts every one of them on guard each time they see a blonde Konoha nin. The fact that you cut a young figure is probably another tack for their anger.

"In Iwa, the Yondaime was regarded as a monster, plain and simple—and the idea that Konoha might just be raising a replica is bound to mess with their heads a bit more," Jiraiya paused in his short speech, his own eyes quite hard. Naruto imagined Jiraiya looked that way because he was crushing bad memories in his mind.

"It's probably logical to assume that all of them had friends or relatives that were killed by Minato," Rin said solemnly.

"To Fire Country, their deaths were a statistic to measure the Yondaime's strength and Konoha's might but to them—each death was a personal blow that stoked their anger. Their problem was that they simply had no one could ever match him. The first flee on sight directive. Ever." Both Rin and Jiraiya looked off into the distance their minds thousands of miles away.

As they trudged on towards the next border, Naruto wondered if it would be so bad to achieve that kind of reputation. The only flee on sight order in history. If it was for Konoha, no he didn't think it was bad to have that kind of reputation. Sure he'd be hated and feared for it—but he'd be hated and feared enough to be left alone. Right?

ooooo

The next person of note that they came across was not entirely unexpected, but caught Naruto off guard nonetheless. At a windy outpost middling the Snow Country border, the tranquility was disturbed by a three-carriage caravan approaching.

It was common knowledge that one carriage meant a noble, two meant a noble's family, and three meant either a Daimyo or someone rich enough to afford three carriages. Any more would be either a prison convoy or a merchant line but they would either have carts or the quality of their carriages would be far worse.

Whispers quickly broke out as some of the nin came to meet the elegant carriages in recognition—it was a celebrity, an actress of some repute supposedly. Not quite twelve years old yet, Naruto had been mystified by the art of filmmaking and how celebrities just seemed to light up the silver screen.

Of these celebrities, he had been completely smitten by the one Yukie Fujikaze. It was the girl's acting that had gotten to him—having been captivated by her expressive layers of emotions—emotions that he knew all too well, and that she portrayed all too vividly.

But in the way that most children are when they meet their first celebrity, Jiraiya and Rin couldn't help but notice Naruto's little crush the moment Yukie's presence was known. They both broke out into sniggers when they saw Naruto's awestruck look as Yukie emerged from the third and last carriage in her procession.

A pale, dainty hand had reached out to grasp the attendant's as she emerged, clothed in a set of beautifully crafted clothes under a luxurious fur coat, a cold haughty look surveying her surroundings with indifference. Her entirely disdainful demeanor twisted her beauty into an unattractive aristocratic arrogance that seemed to make the attendants around her all wither back in reluctance.

That image froze Naruto in his tracks—she was nowhere near the same emotionally varied beauty that she played. Jiraiya had approached them in his usual grandstanding manner, and while he had made good with the rest of the company, Yukie had barely spared him a glance.

The head of the company, Sandayu Asama spoke up as Yukie was led through the sparse spread of cabins and a tower that made up this outpost.

"Jiraiya-sama, it has come to the attention of I and my company that you are making a tour of the Fire nation border?"

"Indeed good man—after all, to be inspired by female beauty I must have—," Rin elbowed Jiraiya in the ribs.

"Yes, we're currently getting our newest member of the Red Guard up to speed in the lay of the land," she said smiling sweetly, Jiraiya doubling over in pain never registering in her smile.

"Ah… Well it would be the utmost honor if individuals of your repute were to join my company for the rest of the Snow country stretch of your journey, as I'm sure you know how… difficult some people can be towards large caravans. We'd be happy to compensate you for your expenses along the way as well."

Jiraiya grinned and nodded as he shot a glance to Naruto out of the corner of his eye.

"It would be our pleasure to travel with you all. But out of curiosity, what brings you to the Snow country border?"

"As you may have heard, one of Fujikaze-sama's films is going to be released a week from now and requires her attendance. However, since we weren't informed of the release date until two weeks ago, you know how it is—scheduling hassles and all."

"Ah of course—in any case, we were planning on leaving tomorrow morning but we'd be happy to wait for you all to recuperate. You've just arrived, haven't you?"

"We have but we were hoping to merely recuperate for the night and thought it would be best to be in the company of Konoha nins. After all, Snow country has never been a place of outdoors comfort," he said pensively, his words lingering in Naruto's mind. Jiraiya nodded in agreement.

"Well it's settled then. We'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning," Jiraiya said with a wave and clapped Naruto on the shoulder. His other hand's fingers wriggled behind Rin, as if presiding over where to touch. Rin sensing this, snapped her elbow up at Jiraiya's wrist, causing him to squawk.

"A perfect example of why inspiration must be found beyond Konoha," he muttered, wringing out his wrist.

ooooo

chapter is dooone—let me know what you think


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